Before we grew up
by Red-Moon-Fairy
Summary: Before Ash and Gary were rivals they were best friends.  -on hiatus-
1. The meeting

Ta da~

First Pokemon fanfic.

First multichapter fanfic.

Disclaimer: I dont own Pokemon. Obviously.

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The desks in the classroom were in pairs. The teacher did this so that everyone would have at least one person to talk to on their first day of school. A few of the students already knew each other from kindergarten.

"Now, I want everyone to pick a desk. It'll be your seat until the school holidays." The teacher told her class.

The children all ran to get the desk that they thought would be the best one. Almost as soon as they were joined by another student the two would be talking and laughing. But poor Ash Ketchum was left out. There was no one at the desk next to him.

The teacher walked to the front of the classroom. The classroom slowly went silent.

"Today will be a day to introduce ourselves and make new friends. You will be in this class for the rest of the year and it'll be a lot more fun if you all know each other. So, I'm going to let you guys talk with each other. Just stay in the classroom." The teacher went to sit at her desk and work on some activities for her class. The students started talking amongst themselves and moving chairs to sit in groups.

Ash sat at his desk, hoping that someone would come and talk to him. Ash was a shy child. He didn't have a lot of courage either. Everything scared him. One time a wild Pidgey was sitting on the handle bars of his bike and he freaked out. His mother had to chase it away before he would even go outside again.

A knock on the door interrupted the teacher from her work. She looked up to the classroom door. An old man was standing there with young boy. She got up from her desk and let them in.

"Sorry we're late. _Someone_ was running around chasing a Rattata instead of getting ready for school." The older man said.

"Well it's not my fault Gramps. It was annoying me." The younger boy said.

"It was sitting there minding it's our business. Look, I don't want to talk about this now. I have work to do. I'll see you this afternoon after school."

"Okay. Smell ya later, gramps." The young boy laughed and ran into the classroom.

"Thanks for dropping him off Professor Oak." The teacher said then followed the boy into the classroom. "So you must be Gary."

"Yup. That's me." Gary replied and looked around the room, seeing everyone talking and laughing except a boy in the corner by himself.

"Okay, your desk in that one over there in the corner." She pointed to the desk next to the boy by himself. "Today we are getting to know one another. I'll be at my desk if you need me." The teacher walked back to her desk and kept working on the stuff she was doing before.

A few students looked up at the newcomer. Most had seen him before from Kindergarten or helping out in the field with his grandfather. Gary walked over to the desk he had been assigned. He put his bag on the floor next to it and took a seat. The boy next to him looked up at him.

"Hi. I'm Gary." He smiled.

"I'm Ash." He smiled back.

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**Next chapter will be up soon-ish.**

**This'll also on my deviantART account.  
**


	2. The bully

**The idea for this one popped into my head when I accidentally spelt 'Ketchup' instead of 'Ketchum**'.

**This chapter is shorter then the first one. Only because I wanted to get the story out of my head and I'm spose to be asleep.**

**Disclaimer: I dont own Pokemon.  
**

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"…and that it why fire typed Pokémon will almost always lose against water type Pokémon." The teacher finished her speech by drawing a picture of an arrow pointing from a bucket of water to a flame.

_Riiinngg!_

The school bell rang signalling that it was the start lunch.

"Okay class. After lunch we will be doing an activity in small groups."

The students got up from their desks, grabbed their bags and hurried out of the room. Lunch was always the best time of the day.

"I'll meet with you later. I'm gonna go buy something from the tuckshop before all the good food is gone." Gary said to Ash and hurried off towards the tuckshop.

Ash made his way over to a shady spot under a tree in the playground. Gary and he would sit there every lunch. Even though they only met less then two weeks ago, the two were almost as close as brothers.

Ash took his lunch box out of his bag. His mother had made him a ham sandwich and a fruit salad. He started to eat the sandwich and watch the other kids run around the playground.

"Hey, Ketchup boy!"

Ash looked away from the playground. Above him stood Alex, the junior school's bully and his friends. They were in grade 5. Next year they would be moving up to the middle school's campus.

Alex had learned Ash's last name was 'Ketchum' just under a week ago and whenever he saw him, he would pick on him.

"Whatcha got there?" Alex pointed to Ash's lunch box. "I'm guessing you have _tomatoes_ in there." His two friends laughed.

Ash looked down at the ground. He didn't have the courage to stand up for himself. He wished he could turn invisible and escape. No one was going to leave the playground to help him either. Everyone was afraid of Alex.

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**Cliffhanger!**

**Not really. It's a tiny bit obvious what'll happen next.**

**Anywhoo.. I'll write the next bit after my exam tomorrow or before my next one on Tuesday.**

**Gotta love last week of school. -_-"**


	3. The bully  2

**Continuation of Chapter 2.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon but I am now the proud owner of an Ash cosplay. Yay for cosplay!**

**Moving on...**

**This chapter is longer than the first 2. I have been given some advice to make the chapter longer... So I did.**

**Now on with the story.  
**

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Some of the kids on the playground stopped to see what was happening. They saw a little grade one-r being teased by the school bully. Everyone wanted to rush over and help but no one would dare go up against Alex. They had either been bullied by him before or their friends had. Even the kids in the same grade wouldn't help.

Ash brought his knees up to his chest to try and hide himself away.

"Oh look. I think Ketchup is afraid." Alex's friends laughed. "What? No response. You're no fun."

Ash just pulled his knees in closer to his chest.

"Hey Ash! They had some of those weird biscuits-" At that moment Gary walked towards where Ash and Alex were, he was looking through his bag so he didn't see the scene that was happening right before him.

"Well if it isn't Oak."

"Huh?" Gary looked up and saw what was happening. "Ash? You okay? Who's this?"

"Wha-" Alex's words caught in his throat. He didn't believe that someone didn't know who he was.

"Who are they?" Gary motioned toward Alex's two friends. A few moments of silence passed. "Where these guys picking on you? Want me to get rid of them for you?"

Alex snapped out of his moment of disbelief. "Like you could. I've seen you around Oak. You think you can act all big and bad just because your Grandfather is the professor of this town."

Gary looked at Alex then back to Ash. "No seriously. Who is this?" He pointed to Alex.

"Okay, I see how it is. I'll let it go this lunch Oak but I'll be back to teach you to who I am and make sure you remember it." Alex walked off. His friends right behind him. Gary watched them leave before sitting down next to Ash.

"You okay?" He asked then started rummaging through his bag again and pulling out a box of biscuits he bought from the tuckshop and passing them to Ash. "Alex is a jerk. Just ignore him and don't show him any emotion and he'll leave you alone. His 'friends' don't speak. They are too afraid to." He just air quotations on the word friends.

"You just said you didn't know who he was." Ash still sounded a bit scared. He put the biscuit in his bag.

"All part of my plan." Gary smiled then stood up. "Here, I'll show you how to defend yourself against guys like Alex." He held out his hand to Ash and helped him off the ground. "Okay, pretend my hand is Alex's face and do exactly as a say." Gary put up his hand, palm facing towards his friend.

"Okay." Ash said and nodded. He was glad to have a friend like Gary who would help him out in times like this.

"When Alex or someone like him comes up to you and starts saying stuff, you scrunch up you fist in anger then pull it bad and BAM right in their nose." He punched the air. "I bet they'll leave you alone then. Here, try hitting my hand."

Ash was shocked. "I can't hit someone. I'll get in trouble."

"I was joking." Gary said between laughs. Ash's innocent-ness was funny sometimes. He calmed down. "Okay serious now. If you ignore them it's a 95% chance they'll just give up and leave. Don't show any response and they'll get bored."

Ash nodded. If it happened again he would remember what Gary said and do it.

* * *

The class slowly walked back into class. Lunch time was over and no one really wanted to go back. They all wanted to keep playing outside.

"Well aren't we a sad bunch. You have another lunch break in an hour. Take your seats and we'll get started on our next piece of work." The teacher stood by the door talking the students as they slowly filed in and took their seats.

The teacher moved to the front of the room. "On the black board you will see three columns with different names in them. These will be your groups this lesson. Your task is to talk to each other about what you want to be when you grow up. Why do you want to be that when you grow up? And also what made you want to be that? This will all be useful for our first assignment that starts next week. Now, I want the people in the Red column to sit over here," the teacher motioned to the right hand side of the room, "and the people in Blue over this side," she motioned to the left, "And Green is in the middle of the room."

The students saw where there names where on the board and moved to their groups.

"Well looks like we are in different columns Ash."

"Huh?" Ash looked up at the black board. He was in Red, Gary was in Blue. "Oh, well I'll see you at lunch then."

"Smell ya later, Ash." Gary moved to the left side of the classroom.

'What does that even mean?" Ash thought to himself as he moved to the right side of the classroom. He pulled a chair from a desk to sit in the group of his classmates. The group sat there awkwardly for a few moments before a girl with purple-black hair spoke. Ash remembered her name was Janine from roll call.

"Well I guess I'll start. I want to become gym leader of my father's gym in Fuchsia City."

"Wow. That would be fun. I want to be a Pokémon ranger and help people." Someone else joined in.

"I want to go out to sea and train with water Pokémon."

"That's kind of what I want to do, but I want to go exploring in caves."

"I want to be a Pokémon master." Ash included his dream into the conversation.

"Well to do that you'd have to beat me," Janine said to Ash. "And I don't plan on letting anyone beat me."

"I think I could do it." Ash and Janine has a mini stare down before the group started giggling. They all soon got lost in conversation and before they knew it the bell had gone for lunch. The teacher dismissed her class and the students grabbed their bags before leaving the room. The last students to leave were Ash, Janine and Gary.

"Hmm... maybe if you trained really hard you might." Janine said to Ash, giggled then ran out of the room to join her friends.

"Who was that? Was it your girlfriend?" Gary teased.

"What? No. Gross. Girls have cooties."

"Her name is Janine right? Ash and Janine sitting in a tree…" Gary sung. "K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

Ash covered his ears. "La la la. I can't hear you."

The pair walked out to the playground to eat lunch and play.

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**Review~**

**School holidays are here! Yes!  
**

**Chapters will be updated weekly-ish.**

**Also.. sorry in advance and past if there are any spelling mistakes or anything.  
**


	4. The last one

**This is going to be the last chapter because**

**a) I have no inspiration**

**b) I'm pretty sure I'm failing at a multi-chapter**

**and **

**c) I have a whole bunch of other ideas to write out**

**Disclaimer: I dont own Pokemon.  
**

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The whole class stared at the clock on the wall above the black board. It was 2:55 on a Friday afternoon. 5 more minutes until it was the weekend and they got to do whatever they wanted for the next two days.

"Now, I know you guys are looking forward to the weekend but there is some homework I want you to complete for Monday." The teacher told the class. The sound of everyone groaning filled the room. "It's not the hard. I just want you to write a few paragraphs about your dream. Remember the lesson we had yesterday, when you were all in groups, to help you if you get stuck."

_Riiinnngggg!_

"I hope everyone has a good weekend. Don't forget your homework." The students jumped up from their desks and raced out the door, wanting to get their weekend started as soon as possible.

"So, anything planned for the weekend Ash?" Janine asked as her, Ash and Gary walked home. The three lived in the same area so it made sense to walk together.

"I'll probably play some video games and help mum out with some chores. What about you?"

"I'm going to visit my dad. He can't leave the gym to visit us so Mum and me are going to surprise him. What are your plans Gary?"

"Well I'm going to visit my Grandpa tonight and see if he is going out to the fields. If he is I'm going to see if he can take me with him."

"Cool. That would be so much fun." Janine said. The three stopped walking. "Well my house is this way. I'll see you guys o Monday." She broke off from the group and started walking.

"Bye!" The two boys called after her and continued to walk towards their own houses.

"Hey, if Grandpa lets me go into the fields with him do you want to come as well?"

"Umm… Yeah. If it's alright with my mum." The two boys reached Ash's house.

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_Ding Dong!_

The doorbell echoed through the Ketchum house. The noise woke Ash up. He decided it wasn't worth satying in bed and up and started to get changed.

"Hello? Oh, Hello Gary. Yes, of course he can. He's upstairs. Yeah, go right up." He heard his mother talking downstairs. It was slightly muffled by the floor but he still got most of what she said. The short conversation ended and the sounds of someone coming up the stair were heard. Ash was sitting on the floor tying his shoes when Gary walked in.

"Hey. So my grandpa said you can come out with us if you want." Gary sat himself down on the edge of Ash's bed. "I asked your mother downstairs and she said its okay. So do you wanna come?"

"Umm… sure. Okay." Ash jumped up. He followed Gary downstairs. "Mum, I'm going out now. I'll be back later."

"Okay honey. I'll see you later. Have fun and don't stay out to late." His mother called from the kitchen.

The two boys left the house and ran towards Professor Oak's lab which was located near the fields.

"Wait, your grandfather is _the _Professor Oak?" Ash questioned. "You never told me that."

"Yeah. Didn't you noticed? Same last names."

"That is so cool. I wish my family was that cool but I only know my mum. My dad left before I was born."

"Well maybe you'll meet him someday."

The two entered the lab. Ash followed Gary through the different rooms until they eventually found Oak. He was wearing a white lab coat and leaning over a bench studying something.

"Hey, Gramps!" Gary yelled making Oak jump and look up. He had giant binocular looking things strapped to his face. They made his eyes look huge. Ash and Gary started laughing. Oak waited for the boys to calm down. He took off the binoculars and placed them on the bench. The two calmed down and Oak spoke.

"So, you must be Ash. I'm pleased to have you accompany us on our trip to the fields. We'll be leaving in a minute. I just have to grab my bag and we'll be off. You two can wait outside if you like."

Oak left the room via one door. The two boys left through the same door they entered.

"So what are we doing in the fields?" Ash asked as they walked outside.

"Just some research. We'll be catching the wild Pokémon for Gramps then he'll look at them or whatever it is he does." Gary leant against the side of the lab.

"Wild? I thought it was Pokémon that were already caught." Ash still had a fear of most wild Pokémon. It wasn't as great as it use to be but it was still there.

"Gramps says that wild Pokémon are better because they… umm… I don't remember. I just like chasing them."

"Okay boys. Time to go." Oak walked out of the lab. The two followed him to the fields just outside of town. He set down his bag of equipment in a small clearing.

"You can go and explore for a little bit while I set up. Don't wander to far."

Gary let out a Woo! in excitement and dragged Ash by the wrist into the part of the field with trees. They kept running until Gary stopped. There was a Pidgey standing just up head of them. Gary started to sneak up on it before yelling and chasing it. It flew away and Gary walked back over to Ash laughing. He fell down to the ground and started panting but still laughing. Ash shook his head in disbelief. If was strange how something like chasing a Pidgey could entertain someone. He sat down aswell.

"Ash. Don't move."

"Why?" Ash froze.

"There's a dangerous Pokémon behind you." Gary sounded serious.

"What!"

"It's a Caterpie!" Gary laughed and jumped up. He ran over and grabbed it. "Aww… you're so cute. Ash! Look! It's cute."

Ash shrunk away from it. Bugs were terrifying. Gary noticed this and brought it closer.

"Say Ash, are you afraid of this? How do you expect to be a master if your afraid of a little bug?"

"I-I'm not afraid." He lied. Gary brought the small creature towards Ash.

"Well I guess you wouldn't mind holding it then~" He practically forced the Caterpie into Ash's arms then stood back to watch. Ash made a face of disgust and fear. The Caterpie made a noise and nuzzled into Ash. After a few moments he got use to if and figured that it was a little bit cute and not as scary as he first thought.

The two boys spend the rest of the day rounding up wild Pokémon for Professor Oak. The sky was a mixture of orange, red and pinks when Ash got home. His mother had already started to make dinner.

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**Yes I fail. I know. Feel free to throw tomatoes.**

**But I did get some advice through reviews that I'll use to make future stories less suckful.  
**


	5. Author's notes!

**Okay.. I give in.**

**I've had my inbox flooded with people saying to continue this. I'm a pushover when it comes to things like this.**

**I would have put this in one of the author comment-y things but I have no idea how to.**

**I've been given one idea for a new chapter. Review with other idea's if you have any and I'll continue this.  
**


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